Starmie, The Mysterious Pokémon. At the center of its body is a red core, which sends mysterious radio signals into the night sky. The middle section of its body is called the core. It glows in a different color each time it is seen. Regardless of the environment it lives in, its body grows to form a symmetrical geometric shape. Its core shines in many colors and sends radio signals into space to communicate with something.

Overview

Starmie is one of the best offensive spinners in the game. Its speed allows it to guarantee a removal of entry hazards, only failing if its opponent is ghost type. However, Starmie falls short on defensive stats. It can’t take hits very well. It does have access to recover, which increases its survivability. Starmie is also a perfect rain abuser, since rain is pretty prevalent in the metagame.

Abilities

Illuminate: This increases the chance of a wild Pokemon attacking you. Illuminate has no effect in battle. Therefore, Natural Cure and Analytic are much better choices.Natural Cure: When Starmie switches out, its status is cleared. This makes Starmie immune to many cripplers like paralysis or poison, as long as it switches out.Analytic: If Starmie moves after its opponent, Starmie gains a 30% boost in attack strength. Since Starmie has great speed, this wouldn’t come into effect a lot.

This set’s primary purpose is to be the team’s spinner but it can also be a powerful threat. Hydro Pump acts as Starmie’s main STAB. Since rain is so prevalent, Starmie’s Hydro Pumps can 2HKO other bulky attackers like Keldeo. If accuracy is preferred, then go for Surf. However, surf is considerably weaker and Starmie’s 2HKOs will become 3HKOs and more. Psyshock is Starmie’s secondary STAB for threats like Breloom or Pokemon that wall Starmie like Blissey. Thunderbolt is used for coverage against other water types like Tentacruel or Jellicent. Ice Beam is coverage against walls that resist water and psychic type damage like Celebi or Ferrothorn.

This set takes less of an importance on Rapid Spin and more of an importance on being a sweeper. With rain support and specs, Starmie can quickly do major damage if not OHKO anything that does not resist water type attacks. This can be done with Hydro Pump. If being sure that it will hit more often, then go with Surf. Psyshock is used for secondary STAB against fighting types like Breloom and Thunderbolt is coverage for other water types, especially Jellicent, who walls Starmie completely with Water Absorb. Trick can be used to trap an opponent into a move. This is a great strategy to cripple walls that Starmie cannot touch very well. Normally, it wouldn’t make sense to put Rapid Spin on a choiced Pokemon, because then it would be locked into Rapid Spin. However, if Starmie manages to trick off the specs, then Starmie goes from sweeper to spinner. If Rapid Spin support isn’t necessary on your team, then go with Ice Beam. It is coverage against threats like Celebi.

Other Options

Psychic, Recover, Scald, Thunder, Protect
Psychic can be used instead of Psyshock as secondary stab. It attacks special defense rather than defense and is a better weapon against physical walls. However, then Blissey and Chansey become a problem for Starmie.Recover allows Starmie to stay at a healthy HP to take hits better. Since Starmie doesn’t have very good defenses, Recover is pretty good.Scald can also be used as primary STAB. It can cause burn but its base power is lower than Surf’s.Thunder can be used instead of Thunderbolt. This move has a higher base power but lower in accuracy. Thunder is much more viable in the rain, as in the rain Thunder has 100% accuracy.Protect is very useful for scouting out an opponent’s move. Since Starmie has low defense, it can give you the clue to get Starmie out of there.

Double & Triple Battle Options

Starmie is still a useful spinner in double and triple battles. Also, since rain is still widely used there, Starmie shines as a powerful sweeper with Hydro Pump.

Partners

Since Starmie’s defenses aren’t so great, anything to improve them would be perfect for Starmie. So a Pokemon that could set up screens or pass some defensive boosts would be a perfect partner for Starmie.

Countering Starmie

Starmie has many weaknesses, firstly being that it can be heavily damaged by any super effective attack. A crunch from Tyranitar or a Volt Switch from Rotom-W can do a lot. It also can be dealt with by anything faster than Starmie. There aren’t a lot but Jolteon is one major threat to Starmie. Choice Scarf also allows slower Pokemon to become threats to Starmie. In most cases, specially defensive Jellicent can wall Starmie really well. Damage done by Thunderbolt can easily be healed back by Recover. CM Latias can also take hits from Starmie without a Life Orb and then set up on it.